Sirius Business - a C# Aurora forum game. v2.5

[randakar]

We do need to take into account that not everything is equally well protected. The Sarthe probably doesn't have shields. The lot-et-garonne missile ships probably do.
The speed thing is important though, sounds like a bad idea to shoot at that one if it may cause them to ditch the one thing keeping them at 13.500 kps.

 

[blue emu]

We have no particular reason to think that the Sarthe is the slowpoke.

The only ships we've seen moving at 20,000+ kps have been scouts or high speed AWACS.

---

The Lot-et-Garonne have about 150-point shields. The Gard around 90. Nobody else, AFAIK.

 

[Wagonlitz]

The Civilian companies are doing their part for the war effort by crowding commercial Freighters into the Harmony star system, hoping that Red 2 will waste all their missiles shooting up civvies.

View attachment 1254806

Couldn't that risk bankrupting the civvies, though?

Our "Dreaded Fortress of Doom" that we parked on the other side of the jump point was built back at the dawn of civilization. Constructed from mud-bricks, if I recall correctly. It is armed with 50-year-old Lasers, directed by 50-year-old fire control computers. It will probably get a few shots off and then get wrecked.

Should we shoot at the scouting group as it jumps in, and then switch targets to the Sarthe as soon as the main Red 2 group jumps through?

At least will tell us about rhe capa ilities of their gunships.
And might take out their tender, if we're lucky.

Sarthe is resupply, taking out a missile cruiser early would not be a bad thing

Wouldn't we want rhe tender to be priority?

We don’t know the relative speed of their ships, and aren’t we speculating that the Sarthe is the one slowing their fleet down?

On that basis, I would say we trust our assumptions and leave the Sarthe unhurt. Is the fortress likely to be able to hurt one of their missile boats, or the unidentified ship?

But without the tender they're limited in amount of missiles.

 

[Wagonlitz]

We have no particular reason to think that the Sarthe is the slowpoke.

The only ships we've seen moving at 20,000+ kps have been scouts or high speed AWACS.

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The Lot-et-Garonne have about 150-point shields. The Gard arounf 90. Nobody else, AFAIK.

I say let's go for tender.

 

[blue emu]

We SUSPECT that the Sarthe is the Tender.

We won't know for sure until we take the wrecks apart.

 

[blue emu]

Couldn't that risk bankrupting the civvies, though?

That's only a dozen ships or so.

It probably represents about 2% of the total civilian tonnage.

 

[SteveZAX]

I do not think that we have PROVED that :
A: the Sarthe is the tender.
B: the Sarthe is the slowest ship
C: they do not have ANY ASM left ANYWHERE on ANY ship in this fleet
or
D: we know what all the other ships do.

If I were a betting man, I would bet our fleet on A, B, and C... but not D

I'm not even sure we know the maximum speed of ANY of their ships.
The Loire-Atlantique, Marengo, and Deux-Sevres are going 13,642 KM/s, which is probably maximum speed for ONE of those classes.

We ARE SURE that they have not gone to any OTHER missle reload facility, but we do NOT have a clue what the Loire-Atlantique and Deux-Sevres are for. They may also carry missle reloads.

 

[randakar]

But without the tender they're limited in amount of missiles

The problem with those salvos isn't reloads.

If red 1 had just a single Lot-et-Garonne those 20 missiles in three groups would not penetrate our PD and not be able to penetrate the shields of an emotion.
They could should fire as many missiles as they want, and it wouldn't matter.

The problem is that there are 7 of them. We only have so many PD vessels, and when there are 140 of those missiles incoming some of them leak through.

Take out one - just one - of them and we'll have an easier time dealing with their missile fleets. If we take out the tender, there may be one salvo less but in terms of damage taken we'd still have to suffer the hits from the other six salvos. Whereas taking down one ship would reduce it to 120 missiles and leave more PD for the rest of them. It might reduce leakers by half.

 

[RobbieAB]

The missiles in a tender only matter in a protracted fight. We aren’t planning to give them a protracted fight.

If we don’t think we can take a Lot, why not go for a Gard? Or a Deux? Maybe the tender isn’t the slowpoke, but why risk it if it is insignificant in the planned battle?

Destroy the Sartre and suddenly their fleet decides to move at 15000kps? That would be enough to play hell with the timings, so I strongly vote “leave an example of every class untouched”

Our timings are calculated based on current speeds, and they are already tight. Why risk making the Xenos fleet faster. We don’t know the Sarthe is the slowpoke, but we also don’t know that it isn’t!

 

[RobbieAB]

Secondary thought: only the gunships have ECM? That means we can’t simply ignore the AMMs in a massed battle, the way the gunships can.

 

[Avernite]

We should murder the scout group, absolutely. They'll be in jump shock, easy pickings, and we never know if they have the firepower by themselves to rip apart our obsolete fort if left untargetted.

 

[Iche_Bins]

Secondary thought: only the gunships have ECM? That means we can’t simply ignore the AMMs in a massed battle, the way the gunships can.

At least in an ambush scenario. Otherwise we will be to far away for that to be an issue

 

[Wagonlitz]

The problem with those salvos isn't reloads.

If red 1 had just a single Lot-et-Garonne those 20 missiles in three groups would not penetrate our PD and not be able to penetrate the shields of an emotion.
They could should fire as many missiles as they want, and it wouldn't matter.

The problem is that there are 7 of them. We only have so many PD vessels, and when there are 140 of those missiles incoming some of them leak through.

Take out one - just one - of them and we'll have an easier time dealing with their missile fleets. If we take out the tender, there may be one salvo less but in terms of damage taken we'd still have to suffer the hits from the other six salvos. Whereas taking down one ship would reduce it to 120 missiles and leave more PD for the rest of them. It might reduce leakers by half.

Very good point.
I say legs do that.

 

[randakar]

Very good point.
I say legs do that.

Feet, too.

 

[blue emu]

We should murder the scout group, absolutely. They'll be in jump shock, easy pickings, and we never know if they have the firepower by themselves to rip apart our obsolete fort if left untargetted.

The fortress was built 44 years ago.

It is armed with half-century-old weapons, directed by half-century-old computers. It has never fired a shot in anger, only in training. It has no ECCM at all.

Against an opponent with level-5 fire control jammers, the hit chance is zero. Unless I misunderstand how ECM / ECCM works.

... so don't get your expectations too high. With ECCM-0, I'll be impressed if we even score a hit.

I say legs do that.

You can't make an omelet without breaking legs... that's what I say!

 

[blue emu]

Seconds from combat...

 

[randakar]

Then fire at something unshielded and hope it's not fit with ECM

 

[blue emu]

Then fire at something unshielded and hope it's not fit with ECM

All they need to do is keep moving. Jump shock does not prevent movement, only fire and FTL jumps (until it wears off).

With half-century-old weapons and fire control computers, our extreme range is 192,000 km.

At 13,642 kps they can cross that distance in 14 seconds. Then the fortress is helpless.

---

The enemy scouting group jumps through to the Harmony star system...

... and STOPS on the jump point.

Ummmm... OK.

Let's hope this ship class has no jammers or ECM.

 

[blue emu]

Nailed them!

They changed their minds about stopping on the jump point and managed to move out of range of our Gauss PD turret ( ) but we'll get one more shot at them.

No penetrations, unfortunately... just some armor hits.

The fortress fired instantly... no fire delay!

 

[blue emu]

Oh, my God... we knocked out an engine... with OUR GAUSS CANNON!

The Gauss Cannon scored hits with all 24 shots!

Three penetrating hits in total, two of them with our Gauss cannon!

- Gauss Cannon only do a single point of damage, by the way. We must have gotten a "Hail Mary" hit on an engine.